It is a rather unremarkable collection of bricks at the moment: an exterior wall at the back of Trinity Repertory Company’s Pell Chafee Performance Center in downtown Providence.

But in the coming months, if all goes according to plan, that wall will host a mural designed by the world’s most famous street artist, Shepard Fairey.

Fairey, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, first won attention as a student with his “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker campaign, a cryptic and alluring bit of viral art that later evolved into an “Obey Giant” crusade.

Two years ago, he vaulted to national prominence when his stenciled image of Barack Obama — often appearing above the word “Hope” — achieved iconic status.

The artist’s return to Providence was born of a conversation between David Ortiz, development director for the arts group AS220, and communications consultant Andy Cutler on Cutler’s porch on a warm day last fall.

Ortiz was searching for new ways to engage with supporters and raise money. And Cutler suggested reconnecting with the underground rock and art movement that animated Providence in the late ’80s and ’90s and was so central to AS220’s early work.

The talk turned, inevitably, to Fairey. And soon, AS220 artistic director Umberto Crenca was chatting with the artist about limited-edition prints that could be sold to raise money for the organization and an even bigger prize: the mural.

AS220 originally hoped to put the wall painting on the side of the Mercantile Block, a Washington Street building the group is renovating. The $14 million project is to include 33 live-work studios and a host of AS220 facilities on the upper floors, with a locksmith, pizza restaurant, and bar at street level.

Historic preservation concerns got in the way, though — legitimate concerns, Crenca says — and AS220 partnered with Trinity Repertory and the city to shift the mural to a rear wall of the Pell Chafee center, looking out over Aborn Street.

As the Phoenix went to press, the arts organization was still waiting on Fairey’s design. But the project promises to be of significance: Crenca says the artist told him it will be his largest mural to date.

Fairey will not paint it himself. He is, instead, designing the work for a relatively modest fee of $5000. Johann Bjurman, a Rhode Island muralist and fine artist, will execute.

Crenca says he hopes the mural will pull suburbanites off the well-worn path to the Providence Performing Arts Center and the Dunkin’ Donuts Center; will disabuse them of the notion that downtown is still the seedy center of so many decades ago.

“It’s a visual draw into the interior of the city,” he says.

But whatever its power, the mural will inevitably be tied up with Fairey’s provocative brand: the artist’s practice of appropriating — and reimagining — others’ work has created no small controversy.

The most famous case involves the artist’s iconic Obama poster. The stencil was based on an Associated Press photograph. And when the news agency demanded compensation, Fairey fired back with a lawsuit claiming that his work is protected by the legal doctrine of fair use, which allows for limited, non-licensed use of copyrighted work for purposes of commentary, criticism, news reporting, and the like.

Ghost stories For all of the excitement that surrounded Wilco on the Maine State Pier or Sufjan Stevens at Port City Music Hall or the various sold-out Ray LaMontagne shows of the past year, there is no question that last Sunday's Phish show at the Cumberland County Civic Center was the biggest thing to hit our fair city in a very long time.

Wanting more After its triumphant traversal of the complete Béla Bartók string quartets at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Borromeo Quartet was back for a free 20th- and 21st-century program at Jordan Hall, leading off with an accomplished recent piece by the 24-year-old Egyptian composer Mohammed Fairuz, Lamentation and Satire.

Two sides of life "I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist," the Pop artist Andy Warhol wrote in 1975. "Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art."

2009: The year in dance You could say there were two tremendous forces that propelled dance into the world of modern culture: the Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev and the choreography of Merce Cunningham.

Hearts and souls (and laughs too) It's been a good year for theater around here — an ingeniously roasted dramatic chestnut here, a new and safely landed flight of fancy there. Below are 10 productions that particularly stood out.

Big starts I kick off my highlights of 2009 with praise for a theater company that has just finished its inaugural season: The Legacy Theater Company, founded by former City Theater artistic director Steve Burnette.

LIBERAL WARRIOR | April 10, 2013 When it comes to his signature issues — climate change, campaign finance reform, tax fairness — Whitehouse makes little secret of his approach: marshal the facts, hammer the Republicans, and embarrass them into action.

AT BROWN, A WIN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVISTS | April 11, 2013 A key Brown University oversight committee has voted to recommend the school divest from coal, delivering a significant victory to student climate change activists.

HACKING POLITICS: A GUIDE | April 03, 2013 Last year, the Internet briefly upended everything we know about American politics.

BREAK ON THROUGH | March 28, 2013 When I spoke with Treasurer Gina Raimondo this week, I opened with the obligatory question about whether she'll run for governor. "I'm seriously considering it," she said. "But I think as you know — we've talked about it before — I have little kids: a six-year-old, an eight-year-old. I'm a mother. It's a big deal."

THE LIBERAL CASE FOR GUNS | March 27, 2013 The school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut spurred hope not just for sensible gun regulation, but for a more nuanced discussion of America's gun culture. Neither wish has been realized.